In collaboration with its lottery customers, IGT deploys innovative and intuitive self-service solutions to engage players and attract new ones. To meet evolving consumer expectations, IGT’s vision for self-service encompasses everything that serves as a TouchPoint for lottery play—extending beyond terminals to the mobile convenience and wagering apps that players can use to access lottery, and the touchscreen technology that supports the evolution of the user experience.

With flexibility, player appeal, and customers’ trust at top of mind, IGT’s solutions help expand all areas of a lottery’s footprint, from high-density trade (GameTouch™ 28), to restricted spaces (GameTouch™ 20), to the player’s own phone through IGT’s PlaySpot™ application.

“Each of our solutions serves as a touchpoint along the player journey, and they can be deployed to support a variety of trade styles,” said IGT’s Paul Kallis, Vice President of Lottery Product Management.

A Range of Strategic Solutions

With about 80% of market share (La Fleur’s Fiscal 2016 Agent Report), IGT provides a range of self-service ITVM and SST vending terminals. The company’s full-sized GameTouch 28 vending machine offers the convenience of lottery purchase at the same time a player is purchasing other necessities.

“GameTouch 28 is the perfect solution for grocery, convenience, and big-box stores offering a full suite of lottery products,” said Kallis.

To date, 5,180 of these machines have been successfully deployed. A new solution, GameTouch 20, provides the same level of convenience as the 28 in a compact form for locations where a more unobtrusive presence is desired. The shorter height also enables more integrated placement in the checkout aisle, allowing easy access to lottery products.

In social spaces such as bars and restaurants, where a full-sized vending machine is not optimal, IGT will offer a sleek new GameTouch Draw machine in 2018 for traditional draw games, including Keno.

“If people are out for the evening at the local pub or restaurant and want to play Keno, instead of waiting on the bartender to purchase Keno wagers, they can walk over to a GameTouch Draw to purchase tickets and return to their table for the draw,” said Kallis.

To provide added convenience, IGT is extending self-service all the way to the player’s hand. Players can use IGT’s state-of-the-art PlaySpot application on a mobile device to place a wager without delay from any location in the retailer, via wireless connectivity with the GameTouch Draw machine through the retailer network.

Maximizing Sales

To manage self-service devices in the field, IGT solutions include a Planogram Manager that allows lotteries to create, group, and schedule planograms for download, ensuring compliance to an assigned planogram through inherent business logic.

“Maximized compliance to the plan equals maximum sales,” said Kallis, adding, “The Planogram Manager simplifies the loading process by allowing retailers to load games in any bin while the planogram logic handles the on-screen organization of games.”

The tool’s dashboard enables evaluation of planogram performance to facilitate modification or follow-up with retailers.

All of IGT’s solutions support cashless as a key sales channel. “A full 80% of the lottery industry’s core retail channels—discount stores, supermarkets, and gas stations—prefer cashless payment,” said Kallis. “Consumers also increasingly expect cashless payment options to be available at all retailers.”

IGT’s Retail Sales and Execution Team works with lotteries to understand the business landscape and develop strategies and plans to foster growth. For example, leveraging the VendMix+ service to add a second vending machine in high-performing locations has been successful in driving incremental sales in Texas, Washington, New York, and Missouri.

As part of the Washington State Lottery’s retail optimization initiatives, IGT’s Retail Sales and Execution Team worked in collaboration with the Lottery to determine which retail locations would benefit by having two machines in-store. As a result, between September 2011 and June 2013, the Lottery installed a second machine in grocery locations, which provided an incremental sales lift of 12% when compared to the period just before the addition. Statewide sales increased 3% during the same period.  Washington’s Lottery has continued this best practice with its recent deployment of 1,475 touchscreen-enabled GameTouch machines from IGT.

IGT’s sleek new GameTouch Draw machine (left) and PlaySpot® solution (top).